Hope

by David Jeremiah

  Why does God heal us? Essentially for the same reasons He healed Hezekiah: first, because of His grace and compassion, and second, for the sake of Jesus Christ—a son of David. Like Hezekiah’s story, ours also is part of a much greater one that we cannot yet see.

  The Prescription

  Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover.”

  ISAIAH 38:21

  Hezekiah’s fatal disease stemmed from a boil somewhere on his body. We can probably assume it had become infected and was leaching poison into his system. God gave Isaiah directions for healing, which were to be passed on to the court physicians attending the king.

  The prescription was a poultice (or paste) made of crushed figs to be applied to the boil. It’s not likely that today’s physicians would think of using pharmaceutical figs, which might be seen as alternative or herbal medicine. It’s more likely they would lance and drain the boil, then administer an antibiotic.

  You might wonder why God bothered to use the court physicians at all. Why not heal Hezekiah through a simple miracle? But God has a habit of using people, their gifts, and their resources to carry out His plans. In fact, we were created to be God’s deputies, doing His work on earth (Genesis 1:28). As C. S. Lewis said, God “seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures.”[6] Clearly, God used doctors and prescriptions in Hezekiah’s time just as He does now.

  In 1994, doctors treated my lymphoma with chemotherapy. When the lymphoma returned in 1998, I received a stem cell transplant. That’s the scientific part of the story. But behind the scenes, a great many people were praying for my recovery. That’s the faith part of the story.

  This raises a question. How much of my healing should be credited to medicine, and how much to prayer? We can’t know, but it really makes little difference: either way, healing comes from above. We are the ones who draw distinctions between the natural and the supernatural. All of it is God’s realm. I simply feel blessed to have both available to me—friends on praying knees as well as doctors with skilled hands.

  One positive aspect of medical solutions is that they get us involved. Becoming active agents of God in our own healing process builds our faith by giving us hope. Following the recommendations of my caring and committed doctors was a powerful encouragement to me. I have complete faith that God led me to those specific doctors, and I thank God for them every day.

  When we face a serious disease, the first thing we should do is talk to God. Ask Him for guidance, and then take advantage of the best medical assistance available, as Hezekiah did. Ultimately, our God is Jehovah-Rophe—“the LORD who heals you” (Exodus 15:26)—whether He heals us with a miracle, with medicines, or in the world to come.

  The Praise

  Hezekiah’s memoir of his experience with disease continues in Isaiah 38:17-20, where he records a testimony of praise to the God who healed him:

  It was for my own peace

  That I had great bitterness;

  But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption,

  For you have cast all my sins behind Your back. . . .

  The LORD was ready to save me;

  Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments

  All the days of our life, in the house of the LORD.

  ISAIAH 38:17, 20

  Hezekiah gave all the credit to God for the miracle of healing. I can’t read his memoir without being reminded of this psalm:

  Bless the LORD, O my soul;

  And all that is within me, bless His holy name!

  Bless the LORD, O my soul,

  And forget not all His benefits:

  Who forgives all your iniquities,

  Who heals all your diseases.

  PSALM 103:1-3

  This passage reminds us that upon recovering from illness, our first order of business should be to praise God. Some people never think of such a thing; they pray in the time of peril and quickly forget God when they are healed. Do you see a lack of consistency here—or worse, a lack of gratitude? If we pray for healing, why wouldn’t we thank God when healing comes?

  Are some illnesses so small and insignificant that we shouldn’t bother God with them? Absolutely not! It’s common for people to thank God when they’ve experienced a close brush with death, as in a barely missed traffic collision, but far too few of us praise Him after getting over the flu or a migraine headache. If we can pray over serious illnesses, why shouldn’t we pray over all illnesses? Nothing that hurts us is too small for His concern.

  In fact, Scripture teaches us to pray not just about our health, but about everything (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Philippians 4:6-7). If we pray about everything, shouldn’t we also praise God in everything (1 Thessalonians 5:18)? It’s fairly simple. When can we pray? All the time. When should we praise God? Whenever we pray.

  The Problem

  Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor shown him, for his heart was lifted up; therefore wrath was looming over him and over Judah and Jerusalem.

  2 CHRONICLES 32:25

  Unfortunately, Hezekiah’s medical adventure has a tragic epilogue. After all God had done for him, after the gift of fifteen precious years added to his life span, Hezekiah lost favor with God. How did this happen? His miraculous recovery caused him to lose his near-death humility.

  As the heat died down on his problems, so did his passion for God. Rather than living humbly before his Lord, his heart began to swell with pride. And he became obsessed with wealth, looking not to God but to goods.

  Hezekiah’s pride in his wealth led him to make the political mistake of showing off his treasury and armory to envoys from Babylon, the empire that would later defeat his nation (Isaiah 39). The king of Babylon had sent his representatives to Hezekiah, supposedly to pay their respects during his convalescence. Their true motive, however, was to curry Hezekiah’s favor toward a mutual alliance against a common enemy: Assyria. This wasn’t on God’s agenda.

  In Hezekiah’s prideful strength and overconfidence, he failed to consult the Lord on these developments, and he confided state secrets to his visitors: “There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them” (Isaiah 39:2). His new “allies” took careful note.

  Isaiah’s heart was grieved when he heard of the king’s foolhardy actions. The prophet foretold God’s judgment on the nation (Isaiah 39:3-7), which later came to pass when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and escorted the people of Judah into seventy years of captivity. They easily looted the treasury and the Temple because they knew where all the wealth was stored. Hezekiah, who had blessed his people by turning their hearts toward God, ultimately failed them just as deeply.

  When Hezekiah died, his son, Manasseh, became king at age twelve and completely reversed all the good his father had done. For half a century, Manasseh left a trail of blood, violence, idolatry, and even sorcery through his reign. His father had lovingly cleansed the Temple; the son desecrated it with a carved image of a false god. The result of his evil leadership was military invasion and the blood of children sacrificed at pagan altars. The kingdom of Judah was on the slippery slope from which it would not recover.

  God had His reasons for healing Hezekiah, even though He knew the future. Yet we can’t help but observe that sometimes everyone is better off when God says no. The nation paid an exorbitant price for those fifteen extra years of Hezekiah’s life. As the psalmist reminds us, be careful what you pray for; you might just get it:

  He gave them their request,

  But sent leanness into their soul.

  PSALM 106:15

  Our problem is that our perspective doesn’t extend much further than our noses, while God’s perspective is infinite. We only know that we hurt, and we want it to stop. But if we could see how our suffering fits into God’s perspective, we would realize there are things worse than our present darkness. Illness may be a necessary cog in the divine plan
to bring about some good. Sometimes it is only through pain that we become who God wants us to be.

  Charles H. Spurgeon, in his wry way, once declared, “I daresay the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness.”[7]

  Instead of quickly pleading for deliverance, we might more wisely ask God about the purpose of our sufferings. How can I grow through this, Lord? We please Him deeply when we pray as Jesus did: “Nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

  Practical Encouragements When Facing Disease

  If a sadder but wiser Hezekiah could join us for questions and answers today, what advice might he give that would help us deal with disease? Let me suggest five possibilities.

  Center Your Mind

  God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

  2 TIMOTHY 1:7

  The human imagination is a powerful force that can create beautiful visions of a desirable future or conjure up every worst-case scenario. These dark products of the imagination can put us in the grip of fear—a place God would never have us go. As this Scripture verse shows, the power that banishes fear is a sound mind.

  We maintain a sound mind by “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Paul wrote those words when false apostles in Corinth were spreading lies about his ministry. When a thought that is not from God enters our heads (“I’m sick; I’m going to die!”), we examine it in light of “the knowledge of God” (verse 5). Does this thought have any basis in reality? If not, we take it captive. No longer can it run free and lead our imaginations away from God’s goodness and into unhealthy fear.

  When Isobel Kuhn was fighting cancer, she realized that the real enemy was something too deep for the surgeon’s scalpel. It lay in the invisible world of her imagination. She wrote,

  I had to refuse to allow my imagination to play with my future. That future, I believe, is ordered of God, and no man can guess it. For me to let myself imagine how or when the end would come was not only unprofitable, it was definitely harmful, so I had to bring my thoughts into captivity that they might not dishonor Christ.[8]

  How different would your life be if you could simply take your thoughts captive for Christ? How much better would you sleep at night? How much happier and less anxious would you be? How much more joyful would friends find you?

  Gaining a sound and centered mind is not as difficult as you think. If we simply read the Scriptures deeply, thoughtfully, and openly every day, we will invite the Holy Spirit to whisper new strength into our thoughts. He and He alone can tame the reckless power of the human mind. A mind centered on the truth of God is the key to being sustained and not losing heart.

  Count Your Blessings

  In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

  1 THESSALONIANS 5:18

  What would you think if you opened your Bible to Ephesians 1 and read, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we are well and healthy, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (verse 3)?

  You probably know that the italicized words I inserted in that verse are nowhere to be found in Ephesians or anywhere else in the Bible. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ—period! Whether we are strong or weak, sound of body or wracked with pain, we are blessed. “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another” (John 1:16, NIV).

  You may wonder how in the midst of debilitating illness we can possibly feel blessed. It’s not a matter just of feeling blessed, as if it is something we must conjure up from our imaginations; it is a matter of seeing the enormous blessings that are truly there. In her book Gold by Moonlight, Amy Carmichael compares living with pain and disease to a hike through a rugged terrain. Even a bleak landscape, she observes, has cheering surprises, like “bright flowers of the edelweiss waiting to be gathered among the rough rocks of difficult circumstances.”[9]

  In times of sickness, our blessings become clearer, richer, and more meaningful. Something therapeutic happens deep in our hearts when we count those blessings. We can rejoice in the prayers of our friends, in a note from a loved one, in the compassionate care of a conscientious nurse, in the smile of a doctor, in the verse of a hymn that comes to mind, in a neighbor who mows the lawn, in a Bible verse that shows up at just the right time, in a prescription that lessens our pain, in a column of sunlight that cuts through the window of the room, in the intricate design of a flower in a nearby vase, or in the innocence and cheer of a grandchild who visits us. In sickness, our focus sharpens, and our perception of what’s truly important narrows to exclude the peripheral values that clutter our lives when good health keeps us too busy to appreciate the simple blessings, which are often the best ones.

  Training ourselves to spot these “wildflowers in the wilderness” is the secret to learning to “count it all joy” (James 1:2). This may not be easy, but it is essential to maintaining our spiritual and attitudinal health. It frees us from the tyranny of being limited to a deteriorating physical frame. It’s liberating to realize that disease does not define who we are—that we are more than our aches and pains.

  Illness also leads us to shift our focus in another way—from the earthly to the heavenly. This is a vital shift that can play an important part in our eventual healing.

  Dr. Ed Dobson was senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when he was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)—a degenerative and terminal illness. For several years he tried to maintain his pastoral ministry with the earnest support of his church. When it became obvious that he couldn’t continue, he stepped out of his pastoral role with great reluctance.

  But nothing could stop Ed from continuing to bless the Lord in all things and to develop the disciplines of praise and personal worship. Ed and his oldest son had once taken a course in Judaism at a local synagogue, where they’d learned the traditional Jewish blessing that begins, “Blessed are you God our God, King of the universe. . . .” Dobson wrote,

  In the midst of my disease, I began blessing God for all the gifts of life. I use this official formula (I learned to do it in Hebrew), and I bless God for each day. I bless God for the ability to shower and clothe myself. I bless God for the ability to button buttons. I bless God for the ability to lift food to my mouth even though I can no longer do it with my right hand. I bless God for everything I can do and for every gift that comes from Him.[10]

  It is always good spiritual arithmetic. If we ask God for a calm, thankful heart that sees all the blessings His grace imparts, He can teach us many lessons in illness that can never be learned in health. As the old Puritan preacher Thomas Watson put it, “A sick-bed often teaches more than a sermon.”[11]

  The Bible doesn’t say we have to be thankful for all things, like the pain and discomfort of illness. But it does say we should give thanks in all things—including illness: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, KJV). Be thankful that even your sickness gives you an opportunity to glorify God.

  Continue Your Work

  We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

  EPHESIANS 2:10

  Many Christians know how God saved them—by grace through faith—but not all know why God saved them: “for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). And as the great NBA star and Hall of Famer Jerry West once said, “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.”

  As long as we’re on this earth, there is work we can do. Even when we can’t walk in the body, we can walk in the Spirit. On his deathbed, the prophet Elisha continued to counsel Joash, the king of Israel (2 Kings 13:14). History is filled with examples of saint
s who served God as long as body and breath would allow.

  As Isobel Kuhn battled cancer, she discovered that staying busy was good medicine for her. Though largely confined to bed, she drew up a daily schedule that fit within the limits of her strength. She worked on her book, engaged in a ministry of prayer, read, studied, and rejoiced in letters and cards that came from all over the world.

  When she lacked the strength even for these activities, she wrote, “Sound health and a normal life I cannot have while on this platform. Therefore I accept the fact and do not fret about it.”[12]

  Isobel Kuhn passed away on March 20, 1957, full of faith and joy. “Facing the end of one’s earthly pilgrimage is not a melancholy thing for a Christian,” she wrote. “It is like preparation for the most exciting journey of all. . . . And so the platform of a dreaded disease becomes but a springboard for heaven.”[13]

  The Englishman John Pounds (1766–1839) is another example of someone who faced illness faithfully. He was a tall, muscular, teenage laborer at the docks of Portsmouth who fell from the top of a ship’s mast.

  When workers reached him, he was nothing but a mass of broken bones. For two years he lay in bed as his bones healed crookedly. His pain never ceased. Out of boredom, he began to read the Bible.

  Eventually, John crawled from bed, hoping to find something he could do with his life. A shoemaker hired him, and day after day, John sat at his cobbler’s bench, a Bible open on his lap. Soon he was born again through faith in Christ. John gathered enough money to purchase his own little shoe shop, where he developed a pair of orthopedic boots for his crippled nephew. Soon he was making corrective shoes for other children, and his cobbler’s shop became a miniature children’s hospital.